The first of three consecutive stages in the Alps is a big one. Just over 200 kilometers with not one but two HC climbs (the Col d’Izoard and the Col du Galibier) and a Cat 3 and a Cat 1 climb before that. A lot can happen today:
Number one is of course the fight for the GC. The summit of the Galibier is 15 kilometers from the finish, which doesn’t typically lend itself to big gaps, but towards the end of such a long and demanding stage, we could see some attacks that stick.
This might also be the last chance for anyone who seriously wants to challenge Brenes and his polkadots jersey. Lopez is presumably the only man that could be dangerous, he’s 38 points behind with everyone else more than 50 points down, but there are a lot of points on offer today.
Of course, there’s also the fight for the stage win. A profile like this could favor another win from a breakaway, if the GC contenders take it a bit slowly. Green jersey Demare would very much appreciate that, because otherwise, the likes of Madrazo, Phinney and Sicard, who would be among the favorites for the stage win, could come dangerously close to his lead in the points classification.
Lastly, for many riders, today will be a fight against the time limit. With three big, long climbs, quite a few could be in trouble.
Brenes wants to lock up the polkadots today, so he’s the first to attack. But Lopez is indeed right there. Ndayisenga and Laengen also respond quickly.
Familiar faces follow: Guldhammer, Velits, Machado and Carthy go after them.
Tinkoff leads the peloton, they obviously would like to get someone in the breakaway as well, but they struggle to do so.
In a close call, Lopez gets six points at the first mountain sprint, Brenes gets none, bringing their difference down to 32 points. The group is still only about a minute ahead of the peloton, no green light yet.
After the climb, the peloton relaxes and the group establishes a good four-minute lead. There are of course four big GC threats in here: Machado is currently 10th, Velits 11th, Guldhammer 15th and Lopez 16th. Here’s a look at the current Top 16, for perspective on the time gaps:
Spoiler
1
Angel Madrazo
Gazelle
79h15'04
2
Taylor Phinney
Grieg - Maersk
+ 1'37
3
Lachlan Morton
Bennelong - Mitchelton
+ 2'38
4
Joseph Dombrowski
eBuddy
+ 3'49
5
Stefan Denifl
SPAR - Siam Cement
+ 3'59
6
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier
Festina - OAKA
+ 4'36
7
Romain Sicard
Air France - KLM
+ 5'09
8
Warren Barguil
Moser - Sygic
+ 9'20
9
Jose Alarcon
Repsol - Netflix
+ 10'07
10
Tiago Machado
Andorra Cycling Project
+ 10'10
11
Peter Velits
Aegon - Lavazza
+ 10'55
12
Fredrik Strand Galta
Aker - MOT
+ 10'57
13
Tim Wellens
Fablok - Bank BGZ
+ 11'03
14
Yonathan Monsalve
Farfetch Pro Cycling
+ 11'47
15
Rasmus Guldhammer
T-Mobile
+ 12'37
16
Miguel Angel Lopez
Evonik - ELKO
+ 12'58
As you can see, the seventh place of Sicard seems reasonably safe, but everyone behind him has to be at least a little worried. This is a strong group. But it’s also a long day.
Consequently, Nareklishvili for Wellens and Turek for Barguil currently set the pace. Not particularly great climbers by any means, but the breakaway isn’t moving rapidly, so they manage to keep the gap below five minutes for now.
Meanwhile, we have the first riders falling behind the peloton. Lanterne rouge Frison is really in trouble, while teammate Dumoulin and the likes of Quaade, Nelson and Kwok are also already struggling at the back of the pack.
The escapees take it pretty easy up this first climb, no one really wants to take responsibity. It’s wise to conserve energy on a day like this, but they should also use the opportunity to increase their advance.
But the mountain points are obviously enticing enough to force a change of pace. Lopez makes the first move, Brenes in fourth position.
And Lopez manages to sustain the attack all the way though: 16 points for him and only 8 for Brenes. The group remains largely intact, but Ndayisenga and Laengen have to fight the hardest to keep up.
Lopez reduces his deficit to 26 points. Still a lot, but there are up to 40 points to be gained from the final two climbs.
The peloton still has more than 150 riders in it when Dunbar leads it over the summit. The gap to the escapees has increased to almost six minutes.
On the Col d’Izoard, Shapira has seized the reins at the front of the peloton and under his pacemaking, both the peloton and the gap to the breakaway shrinks. The former to around 60 riders, the latter to just over three minutes.
Worst Case Scenario for Indosat: More than four kilometers from the summit, Brenes can’t keep up anymore with the high pace set by Machado. This kicks the door wide open for Lopez to capitalize.
But the white jersey might not be as fresh anymore himself! Ndayisenga is the next rider to drop back, followed by Laengen, but it looks like Lopez can’t keep up with the first four riders either.
But he does not give up just yet. Machado accelerates towards the summit, Carthy and Velits firmly behind him for now, but Lopez jumps past Guldhammer, who is now fading rapidly.
Carthy seems to be the strongest at the moment, Lopez comes through fourth. All those accelerations have pushed the gap to the peloton back up to over six minutes - and Machado into the virtual Top 5.
Lopez only gains another six points from the Izoard, Brenes might live to fight another day, but the Galibier is of course yet to come.
The first five reunited on the downhill, Laengen isn’t far behind. Ndayisenga and Brenes seem unlikely to get back to the front at this point.
eBuddy and Gazelle are now the main teams at the front of the peloton. They set a consistent pace, slowly chipping away at the lead, but it’s nothing too fast just yet.
At the foot of the Col du Galibier, the main breakaway have just under five minutes on the peloton. So far, they’ve fared better on the climbs than on the flat sections in between, so they might hope to carry this gap all the way to the top and then to the finish.
The climb itself starts with modest percentages but gets really steep in the second half. A lot of opportunities for stuff to happen.
Brambilla has taken the lead in the peloton, and this is now some real pace! More and more riders drop and he brings the peloton closer to the breakaway, the gap is down to under three minutes in no time.
Wow, this is early! Brambilla’s work seems to have been in clear preparation of this attack by his leader Dombrowski. We’re still a whole 11 kilometers from the finish, so this is really something.
Madrazo immediately moves to the front of the group to lead the pursuit. Only 15 riders remain in this group - precisely the Top 20 of the GC, minus the five that now are in front of them.
Make that the Top 18: Arndt and Brambilla lose touch.
Galta is next, not a good sign for the rest of the climb, which is still 9 kilometers long. Dombrowski holds on to a small lead.
With the favorites coming closer and closer, Carthy attacks from the breakaway! Laengen immediately drops, the others stay with him for now.
Dombrowski goes past Laengen, but he can’t really shake the other favorites, Madrazo has kept that gap consistently at 10 to 15 seconds for the last few kilometers. Wellens is the next to fall behind, the breakaway is just over a minute ahead.
Dombrowski adventure is over with just about three kilometers left on the climb. As soon as that contact is made, the group slows down drastically. Wellens catches up again and the distance to the breakaway increases to over two minutes.
That’s too slow for Lecuisinier, so he attacks next!
Schleck and Barguil are actually the first to respond, the yellow jersey stays in the second row.
Lecuisinier gets some decent seperation, which promts Dombrowski to go after him with another attack. Madrazo now goes out of the saddle as well!
Further ahead, it’s Velits who accelerates. Guldhammer can’t keep up anymore.
Madrazo joins Dombrowski and the two chase Lecuisinier together. The escapees are now in sight.
Morton leads the other favorites. First Wellens, then Monsalve have to let go.
With a quick acceleration, Madrazo catches up with Lecuisinier (and Guldhammer) and gets rid of Dombrowski for now. Group Morton is already more than a minute behind the American, who has his eyes set on the podium now!
Carthy really wants to fend off the favorites and save the lead over the summit, so he attacks again!
He manages to cross the summit first, collecting another 20 points, but right that moment, Lecuisinier and Madrazo make contact. Lopez crosses the line third, he’s now just 8 points behind Brenes in the mountain classification - Machado is only another 23 points down, by the way.
Just under the summit, Alarcon and Henao Montoya fall behind the other favorites.
Here’s what we’re looking at as we start the final 15 descending kilometers.
Velits and Dombrowski make it back to the front halfway to Valloire and the latter immediately moves to the front as the best downhill rider of the group.
The six chasers try their best to catch up, and they manage to shave a few seconds off their deficit, but not a lot. It’s still at around 1’40 with 8 kilometers to go.
A quick look at the distances behind them shows that Galta is currently set to lose the most. He started the day 12th overall, but will drop quite a few places.
We can jump right into the finale, nothing else happened on the rest of the downhill: Dombrowski, Lecuisinier and Carthy are in the lead as the group heads into the final kilometer. The French is the fastest on paper here.
It’s a weird road to the finish line and it’s still going downhill pretty heavily. Dombrowski has the inside track, but the win is still anyone’s to claim.
Dombrowski takes the win and 20 valuable bonus seconds with it! Lecuisinier and Lopez finish second and third ahead of Carthy and Madrazo, who just barely outsprints Machado. Velits caps off another great day for him with a seventh place.
Guldhammer also performs well once again. He loses 52 seconds on the first group but gains just as much and more on the riders behind him.
Morton and Barguil lead the next group over the line, their final deficit is 1’36. It’s a good result for the Moser leader and for Schleck, while Morton, Phinney, Sicard and Denifl have to look at their time loss to Dombrowski and Lecuisinier with disappointment. Morton even loses his spot on the podium for now.
Alarcon and Henao Montoya finish next, 15th and 16th, respectively. They lose 36 seconds to the group ahead of them, Monsalve follows another 33 seconds later.
Wellens and Laengen are the next to cross the line before Galta comes in, arguably the Top 15 contender who suffered most today. He’s timed 5’26 behind Dombrowski.
Today is also by far the most brutal day in terms of riders missing the time limit. Dumoulin is the last to make it, but these 11 don’t:
Leung
Delgerbayar
Kwok
Bernaudeau
Vanderpool
Mottin
Stimulak
Barbier
Frison
Korsaeth
Vermote
James Oram is now the lanterne rouge.
Today proved much more eventful than some may have expected (read: than I had expected). Increasing his GC lead to more than three minutes, it looks like Madrazo has this thing wrapped up - although one bad day could still turn everything on its head again. Behind him, the fight for the podium is as contested as it’s ever been: Phinney, Dombrowski, Morton and Lecuisinier are seperated by only 1’21! Denifl and Sicard follow at one and two minutes behind the French, respectively.
Machado moved all the way up to 8th overall, but Velits and Barguil are less than a minute behind. You would think the breakaway days are over for the two oldies now, but who knows?
From Alarcon in 11th to Henao Montoya in 18th, eight riders are within five minutes, with the biggest gap between Monsalve (15th) and Schleck (16th) at just under two minutes. Carthy has jumped to 19th now, but is more than 12 minutes behind 18th place. Brambilla and Arndt are the main rivals fighting for the final two Top 20 spots, but the Puma leader is almost four minutes behind the Italian - maybe it’s finally time for him to go on the attack?
Speaking of Puma, Demare’s lead in the points classification has shrunk to just 14 points over Madrazo. With two more mountain top finishes before Paris, he really has to hope for some breakaways to succeed tomorrow and the day after.
Tour de France 
